So.....what makes a rifle a rifle?

[darkgael]

This thread and question are an attempt to avoid further hijack of the smooth bore rifle thread.
A question for discussion (against the backdrop of smooth rifles): what makes a rifle a rifle?
Pete

[Cuts Crooked]

Rifling......a barrel over 16"....and butt stock.

A "smooth rifle" is not a rifle.

[Saloon slug]

+1 Rifling makes a rifle. Smooth bore is a shotgun or a musket.

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[Empty Quiver]

Lands and grooves.
 
Sights and a trigger do help compleate the package.

[mcwoodduck]

Ok we all know the lands an grooves make a rifle.
The next questions is what is the difference between a Carbine, a Rifle and a rifled musket?
All three contain lands and groves but are the lands and grooves differnt?  Are the twist rates different?
 

[Empty Quiver]

As I understand it it has to do with barrel length. There is not exactly a standard length but a relationship. The carbine being the shortest, a rifle being middle, and musket being the longest. Look up the old Winchester lever guns to see where I got the idea.

[IronBrigade]

Why is my HR slug gun considered a shot gun and not a rifle? Sorry if I get off the traditional topic hear, but I am curious.

[darkgael]

Why is my HR slug gun considered a shot gun and not a rifle? Sorry if I get off the traditional topic hear, but I am curious.

Yeah, it is kinda off the topic but I have had similar thoughts myself. I have a Mossberg 695 bolt gun, rifles barrel, rifle sights, rifle stock......but it is a shotgun legally. I suspect that it and yours are so classified because they use shotgun shells for ammo.
As to this thread's topic.....the stimulus was muzzleloaders and so the type of ammo is not an issue.

The next questions is what is the difference between a Carbine, a Rifle and a rifled musket?
All three contain lands and groves but are the lands and grooves differnt?  Are the twist rates different?

Now that is a hijack of sorts.....maybe needs its own thread if there is more discussion.

[ironglow]

  smoothbore rifle ?

[Empty Quiver]

Why is my HR slug gun considered a shot gun and not a rifle? Sorry if I get off the traditional topic hear, but I am curious.

Yeah, it is kinda off the topic but I have had similar thoughts myself. I have a Mossberg 695 bolt gun, rifles barrel, rifle sights, rifle stock......but it is a shotgun legally. I suspect that it and yours are so classified because they use shotgun shells for ammo.
As to this thread's topic.....the stimulus was muzzleloaders and so the type of ammo is not an issue.

The next questions is what is the difference between a Carbine, a Rifle and a rifled musket?
All three contain lands and groves but are the lands and grooves differnt?  Are the twist rates different?

Now that is a hijack of sorts.....maybe needs its own thread if there is more discussion.

I claim no real legal knowledge, but my feeble understanding of "destructive device" vs big bore rifle vs shotgun tells me that to label something with a bore 3/4" inch across a rifle would be problematic somehow.
 
Perhaps it is as simple as marketing, nothing more or less. Label your product to sell to the target audience.

[coyotejoe]

The rifled shotgun is another "rule beater" intended to circumvent hunting regulations, it is a shotgun in name only. The ATF has decreed that if it fires a shotgun shell it is a shotgun and therefore legal for use in areas where local hunting regulations require shotguns only. The rifled slug gun is a way for hunters to get the range and accuracy of a rifle while still complying with the law of shotguns only.

[flintlock]

Gentlemen...Smooth rifles are American Longrifles with smooth bores...
 
They have been called this for decades by those who collect, study and build them...There were also rifles at that period that had straight rifling, the grooves didn't spiral...Kinda interesting that a fellow would rifle a barrel and not have the rifling spiral but they did...
 
Look through copies of "Rifles of Colonial America" by George Shumway and you will see many examples of smooth rifles, rifles with straight rifling and traditional long rifles...
 
On the other post, the OP is incorrect, Mark Baker's rifle is a .50 caliber gun with a rifled barrel and his load is 50grs FFF behind a .490 ball and .015 patch...Reference "A Pilgrams Journey" by Baker...No reference is made in his book on shooting shot through this gun or even carrying shot in his shooting bag...

[mechanic]

I'm thinking that originally, the rifle shot a single projectile, while the shotgun shot multiple?  Really it's kind of convoluted nowadays as the meaning of all these has morphed.
 
Ben

[Swampman]

Gentlemen...Smooth rifles are American Longrifles with smooth bores...
 
They have been called this for decades by those who collect, study and build them...There were also rifles at that period that had straight rifling, the grooves didn't spiral...Kinda interesting that a fellow would rifle a barrel and not have the rifling spiral but they did...
 
Look through copies of "Rifles of Colonial America" by George Shumway and you will see many examples of smooth rifles, rifles with straight rifling and traditional long rifles...

At least someone knows something about the subject.  Mark has more than one gun.  The one he has now isn't mentioned much in "A Pilgram's Journey"  He's a very nice efellow.

[darkgael]

Gentlemen...Smooth rifles are American Longrifles with smooth bores...
 
They have been called this for decades by those who collect, study and build them...

Very true. Again, however, that comment about the history begs the question.
One could infer that it is not the rifling of the barrel that makes a rifle, though the latter is clearly derived from the former. What then?
If a person were to take the barrel and lock from a New England Fowler and install it on a stock which had a cheek piece, a patch box, a rear sight, and a grip rail about the trigger.....would it then be a rifle? Would simply adding a rear sight to a fowler make it a rifle? Would adding a rear sight to -a shotgun make it a smooth rifle?
What makes a rifle a rifle?
 As I understand the history of its development, the term "rifle" came in to use when "rifling" was added to the barrels of shoulder fired weapons. When this actually occurred is more than a little murky.....some time in the 1400's.

[Mike in Virginia]

It's just a term.  But it IS accurate.  In the golden age of flintlocks, smoothbore rifles were made exactly like rifled rifles.  They had the same stock design, the same sights.  They were preferred by many because of the ease of cleaning and loading.  In those days, if you owned a longrifle, it never got completely cleaned.  The Goex we have now did not exist.  The steel of modern replicas did not exist.  The bores rusted, pitted and corroded to the point one either bought a new gun or he had the bore "freshed," which was to scrape out the corrosion to the point the caliber was increased.  A .50 caliber became a .52 caliber.  One didn't walk into a sports store and buy round balls.  He made them himself.  He carried bar lead to replenish his supply.  Good grief.  The replicas we pay $2000 for now are only like the originals in their overall geometry.  The metal was iron, not steel.  The vent hole was nothing else; just a hole.  No stainless vent liners.  The sights were mere bumps on the barrel and nothing at all like the large sights we see on today's replicas.  Even when the Hawkens were produced in St. Louis, they were nothing like the Lyman or Thompson Centers of today.  They were huge.  Weight was at least 12 pounds.  The poor grade blackpowder poured down the barrels was crude at best.  We don't like to think about the quality of guns and powder and every other aspect of life in those days when we try to dress and hunt and play like they did then.  We are way too vain.  We wouldn't have a slow action lock or a gun where the wood to metal fit wasn't perfect.  Although I love muzzleloaders, I know we can never experience the hardships and problems faced by those first pioneers. 

[ironglow]

  It certainly appears to be a misnomer however..  It would seem that a riflecannot be a rifle without rifling.
 
   Oh well..but then we Americans have many misnomers.. normally we "park in a driveway"...and "drive on a parkway".. 
 
  ...And we ask; "Where does that road go to?" ...when we know full well it doesn't go anywhere, even though vehicles travelling upon it are going places..

[darkgael]

It's just a term.  But it IS accurate.  In the golden age of flintlocks, smoothbore rifles were made exactly like rifled rifles.  They had the same stock design, the same sights

I do agree that "smoothbore rifle" is just a term, a convenient and popular way of describing this type of firearm.
I wonder, though, about the accuracy of the term. What makes a rifle different than a shotgun? What makes one a rifle and the other not?
Is it the name that people use that determines what something IS or is it something else? The fact that the term has been long used and by knowledgeable folk does not mean that it is accurate, only that it is convenient.
Making an inference here.......you are saying that it is stock design and sights which determine that a  firearm is a rifle. Is that correct? (I don't want to put words in your mouth if that is not what you mean.)

The Italian arms company, Pedersoli, manufactures a firearm named the Kodiak Express Double Rifle. One version is in .72 cal, rifled barrels. They also make (or made) a 12 gauge SXS shotgun that uses exactly the same stock. Would adding a rear sight make it a rifle?
Does bore size make a difference? Smooth rifles tend to be in calibers much smaller than the .72/12 gauge of the Pedersoli. Green Mt. has a smooth rifle barrel for sale in .40 cal. Most that I have seen are in calibers more traditionally found in rifled barrels. Until recently, I had a smoothbore .54 cal barrel for my GPR. Was that a smooth rifle? I thought of it as a fowler of sorts.
Pete

[ironglow]

Those European double rifles, even though laid out like a shotgun...are still rifled and very much a rifle; much the same as our Handis are laid out like a shotgun but those being rifled...are rifles..
      http://www.google.com/search?q=holland+%26+holland+double+rifles&hl=en&tbo=u&qscrl=1&rlz=1T4GGNI_enUS502US502&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=vNXiUKLdPKay0AHo0oCwCQ&sqi=2&ved=0CFMQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=595

[ironglow]

  Technically, I believe guns such as the Savage 200 and other rifled shotguns rifled for slugs should be called rifles, but between habit and the fact of cartridge style..they are still referred to as shotguns by most.

[pastorp]

Interesting discussion, but some answer only in questions and others know but only guess. 

To me the difference is obvious. If you can shoot shot its a shotgun or Fowler. If its a gun designed for military use its a musket. If its a gun designed for accurately shooting a single ball it's a rifle. 

See that was not that hard. Was it. 

Regards,

[BUGEYE]

If you put a single projectile in a shotshell, it becomes a cartridge, does it not??

[Swampman]

No, it's a slug or a pumpkin ball.

[mcwoodduck]

Gentlemen...Smooth rifles are American Longrifles with smooth bores...
 
 
Look through copies of "Rifles of Colonial America" by George Shumway and you will see many examples of smooth rifles, rifles with straight rifling and traditional long rifles...
 

Wasn't the original lands and grooves put in to aid with fouling making it easier to load the gun when after many shots were taken?
How they got twisted is what imparts the spin and may have been a happy accident.
There were a few guns that were smooth borte except the last inch or two that were twisted and seemed to work well with both round ball and shot giving a multiple option gun for general purpose hunting.  The name of it escapes me at the moment.  Kind of like having a rifled choke in a modern shotgun that will work with Sabots and still shoot shot.
And smooth bore rifle sounds like soneone saying I have a 4 cylinder V8 in my car.

[BUGEYE]

No, it's a slug or a pumpkin ball.

A slug is a molded bullet and I've loaded single buckshot in a 30-30 case. (0)

I'll continue calling them cartridges.

[darkgael]

To me the difference is obvious. If you can shoot shot its a shotgun or Fowler. If its a gun designed for military use its a musket. If its a gun designed for accurately shooting a single ball it's a rifle. 

See that was not that hard. Was it.  ,

Makes sense to me.
Pete

[P.A. Myers]

I always thought that meant a smoothie with rear sights.

    [Jumbo shrimp, Military intelligence, smooth rifle]

[ironglow]

Interesting discussion, but some answer only in questions and others know but only guess. 
  ..Not quite Pastorp..(IMHO)

To me the difference is obvious. If you can shoot shot its a shotgun or Fowler. I can fire shot from my 10/22 or Savage 93F..  If its a gun designed for military use its a musket.  An M4 or m249 SAW rifle a musket? If its a gun designed for accurately shooting a single ball it's a rifle. 

See that was not that hard. Was it.  ...Not really..

Regards,

[darkgael]

If its a gun designed for accurately shooting a single ball it's a rifle.

.
Rifle. The name is derived from the presence of lands and grooves (rifling), an element of production which differentiates the firearm from similar guns that do not have rifling.  If there is no rifling, regardless of its efficiency as a firearm, it is technically not a rifle. Calling a smooth bored long gun that has been designed to accurately shoot a single ball a smooth rifle may is a time honored convenience but without rifling, it ain't a rifle.
Pete

[pastorp]

Ironglow, we were talking about muzzleloaders weren't we? 

 

Regards,